A common operation on many worksites is the excavation and removal of material. For example, in open-cut mines material is excavated from worksite locations (e.g. faces) and loaded into haulage machines for transport to a designated dumping or processing area.
Loading machines such as electric mining shovels are commonly used to load haulage machines with material. The loading machine collects material in a dipper and delivers it to the tray of a haulage machine, which will usually have capacity for multiple dipper-loads of material.
Monitoring and measuring the delivery of material from the loading machine to the haulage machine can be useful, for example in pursuing production objectives of a worksite. To this end haulage machines are often equipped with systems for measuring the payload weight (i.e. the weight of material in the tray) and communicating messages on the payload weight to a central control.
Taking payload weight measurements can, however, be difficult. For example, one way of measuring haulage machine payload weight is by measuring the movement of struts that support the tray. In this case, however, stiction in the struts can lead to initial dipper-loads not registering and measurements not being taken. Further, even where measurements are taken communications across worksites can be poor (particularly if a machine is operating in worksite location with poor coverage) which can lead to messages going missing.
Missing data effects the ability to accurately report loading operations.